I recently bought a collection of five small, inexpensive glass vases, each a different color but with the same tear drop shape. I filled three of them this week with stems snipped from various areas of the garden.
The vibrant blue
Salvia macrophylla in my front garden started me on this path. It has produced sporadic blooms this summer but this week it's suddenly full of flowers. The blue color of the
Salvia is so bright it makes any most blue or purple blooms paired with it look dull so I kept things simple, adding just a few stems of
Abelia 'Radiance' and variegated
Caryopteris (noID).
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| The bright blue flowers even make the cobalt blue vase look somber |
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| It'll be interesting to see if the Salvia macrophylla flowers hold up in a vase - they don't last long in the garden |
I constructed the second vase around a few short stems of
Clematis terniflora (aka Sweet Autumn Clematis), the only
Clematis I've ever managed to grow successfully here. I added two stems of
Erysimum linifolium 'Variegatum' and reused the stem of
Eustoma grandiflorum 'Borealis Yellow' from last week's vase.
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| In contrast to the blue vase, this one has a subdued aura |
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| Thus far, most of the Clematis blooms are sitting in the sun at the very top of the arbor supporting the vine - I could reach only a few of the side shoots |
I used flowers with orange tones in the third, amber-colored vase.
Grevillea 'Ned Kelly' is blooming again but its stems are short so a small vase is perfect. I added
Zinnias,
Abelia 'Kaleidoscope', and
Russelia 'Flamingo Park' to fill it out.
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| This is my personal favorite out of this week's arrangements |
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| I think the Zinnias steal the show from the Grevillea |
Vases this size are easy to tuck into spots throughout the house, which I did.
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| The blue vase sits in the kitchen window (where the glare made it hard to photograph); the green vase sits on the master bedroom mantle; and the amber vase sits on a side table in the living room |
I had some extra stems of
Abelia 'Kaleidoscope' left over so I threw together a larger vase for the front entryway starring
Gaillardia 'Arizona Sun', which is starting to wane in the front garden.
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| In addition to the Abelia and Gaillardia, this vase contains Coreopsis 'Redshift' (which has been fried by the heat this summer) and immature fruits of an Arbutus 'Marina' |
Meanwhile, the large succulent vase I created two weeks ago is back on the dining room table.
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| A few succulent leaves have withered since I created this water-less vase but I suspect I stressed it by leaving it sitting in full sun outside for a few hours a week ago |
Visit Cathy at Rambling in the Garden, the host of the "In a Vase on Monday" meme to find still more flower and foliage arrangements.
All material
© 2012-2015 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party
